First Mental Ray Image

[marksee]

This is my first attemp at mental ray. I was hoping for a little critique on the lighting (I understand the modeling isn't yet finished.) It seems to me that it is a bit monotone, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of shadows, but I cannot seem to figure out why. I have also posted the MR settings for any suggestions.

[marksee]

materials are arch and design. I have slowly been working my way through your mentalboutmax tutorials, however, have a bit to go as i've only gotten through the fundamental modules. The lights are photometric with raytraced shadows, density varies from .2 by the walls to soften the shadows on the wall to all the way to 2.0 in the middle of the scene trying to get more varied tones and shadows. All the advice is much appreciated. Oh, lastly, I jacked the contrast (for exposure control) way way up to get this contrast - maybe this is why. logarithmic exposure, bright.:60 cont.: 100 Mid 1.3 and scale: 1300

[F3LIC3]

Some points:

 

- leave the trace depth of GI and FG at its default values

- set the decay to the physically correct value of 2.0

- shoot more than 5000 photons (20 000 for tests should work)

- you can set the bounces of the FG down to 0 because they don't work with GI

[marksee]

Well there is no doubt that the scene looks much better, however, I still can't get shadows. They seem like they want to be there, but they are so diffuse that you cannot tell that they even exist!! The attached image, I put a sphere in the middle of the screen to see what kind of shadows I was getting and its barely any. I put the lights shadow density to 100 and still no shadows (this is the rendering you are seeing.) Shadows are definately on both globaly and individually and set for mental ray shadow maps. :confused:

[F3LIC3]

In your scene it's normal that you don't get any dark shadows because every part of it is directly lit by a light.

Also you should use raytraced shadows which are giving the best and most realistic results.

[Justin Hunt]

Have a look at the fall-off max distance for the FG. sometimes these cause the image to be over bright/ washed out. Try turning it off. The image will become darker more contrasty.

 

JHV

[marksee]

I have the falloff turned off for the last image. I found that if I placed a regular mromni in the same spot (in only a few locations) with a low multiplier that the shadows were much more pronounced. Do photometric lights not produced a pronounced shadow? Thanks for all the help and comments.

[Justin Hunt]

Not always, Try a standard spot with falloff set to inverse square.

 

I find the there is too much playing around with ies light to get the result you want. Its the battle between reality and idealism. If it looks good then it is good, is what I say.

 

JHV